Best Sri Lankan drama movies

Bimba Devi alias Yashodhara is a 2018 Sri Lankan Sinhala language epic, biographical drama film written and directed by professor Sunil Ariyaratne. This historical biographical film film depicts the life of princess Yashodhara, the wife of Prince Siddhartha.

In 1814, a nobleman from the Kandian Kingdom of Sri Lanka helped the British army to revolt against the king of Southern India, but was driven to a traitor. His wives have to choose between committing suicide or marrying outcasts. Instead of suicide, young and beautiful Tikiri chooses to marry an untouchable, named Vijaya.

Three friends embark on a journey to a land that was once forbidden but a sudden encounter forces them to return to yet another land of turmoil and terror.

A school principal is transferred to a national school in a far flung area as a political punishment. Through his dedication and perseverance, the principal develops the school with impressive academic results.

Sam an autistic person and his desire to live and achieve his dreams. Challenges that he has to face from the society and from the family. Overcoming all and living in his dream life.

A virus is spreading across Sri Lanka, reportedly causing young people to commit suicide. The Disease Control Unit promises containment of this terrifying pandemic by any means necessary, citing supernatural forces that only ancient healing rituals can vanquish. As parents mourn the deaths and disappearances of their children, government henchmen prepare the bodies and the remaining living prisoners for a cleansing of disturbing proportions.

In a dilapidated rural courthouse a mother seeks justice for her son abducted by paramilitary men during the 1988/89 insurgency in Sri Lanka

A new teacher, Uma (Anasuya Subasinghe), arrives at a school with her first appointment in a remote village near Dambulla in Sri Lanka. The school has few students, with only the principal (Lucian Bulathsinghala) and Uma as the teacher. With the help of Uma the pupils gradually start to dream of bigger things than they ever imagined. One day Upuli, a blind girl, shares her unseen dream with school friends Sukiri and Ukkun. It gradually becomes the dream throughout the village. The children and Uma encounter perils in their venture to realise this dream. The children of the school start to focus on something they have never seen before. This target gives rise to a small revolution.

A film that touches Life, Death and Expectations.One Person’s death fans the flame of expectations in another. the life that begins with that expectation ultimately ends in death. Loneliness, loss of social contacts and deceit are the underlying human conditions of the film.

Thisara, the owner of an advertising firm, gets a contract to make a propaganda campaign for the opposition leader Gregory Mahadikaram at the next presidential elections.

Set in a fishing village named Kalpitiya, this movie explores tradition and exploitation because of capitalism in this small village.

After a catastrophic tsunami in 2004, many lives were changed forever. This movie portrays a heart-warming story of two such families, and the story revolves around a 2-year-old child believed to be washed away by the floods. 10 years later, the Tamil family learns about a 12-year-old Sinhalese girl who can understand Tamil and remembers incidents from her previous life. Soon they recognize the girl by a birthmark on her face. The young girl now has to choose between her biological family and the family she grew up with.

After accidentally running over a girl by a car, a man is targeted for revenge by a strange desolate family.

Podi Eka, a village teenager without any education living with his poverty-stricken mother and sister. He cannot even write Amma (mother) Akka (sister) mama (me). Instead he draws three crosses on the wall in charcoal depicting the threesome. He works for his stepfather carrying water to the illicit brewery and experiences the rape of his sister by the stepfather, the bootlegger and the consequent suicide of his sister. He murders his stepfather in vengeance and spends 17 years in jail, returning to the village as an adult to help his uncle in farming and cattle rearing. He is still called Podi Eka. His attempts to start a new life fail on account of the tragic death of his mother and his own brutish desires.

Goal is the story of bunch of ordinary village children who challenge the impossible with the help of a teacher who refuses to see them fail.

Some are called heroes, some villains. Histories get buried and the dead are resurrected. Sometimes a thread of humanity gets drawn from blurred stories. It could clothe the world one day or stitch together a fallen flag.

A middle class boy from the highlands who falls in love with an upper class girl in Colombo. They are both high school students. The girl's arranged marriage and her illness make life difficult for the young couple. They challenge cultural conventions to succeed.

(Eka Dawasaka Api / එක දවසක අපි) The day Parami appeared on Vimukthi’s eyes he found out that she is the one who he needed to his life. Later, a day with a tension mood these two soul mates get into a train with tears on their faces to ride their last train journey together. But Vimukthi’s family is strongly against to approve Parami as their daughter in law. The reason for disapproving Parami is her cast and status.

This is a film that showing the epic battle and struggle a group of uneducated villagers went through to get its independence back in 1948 and its discusses a "secret" what happened between 1947 November and to talk about how Sri Lanka got its independence in 1948.

Suwisal has turned 40. He's a forgetful businessman, a philanderer, indifferent to life around him, including his young and lovely fiancée. A visit to the house of his childhood triggers memories that continue to cascade when he is called for jury duty to hear the case against Piyum, a servant he seduced and abandoned 20 years before. Now a prostitute, she is on trial for murder.

Mille Soya, is a film depicting a dangerous and hazardous journey by a young Sri Lankan group to rich Europe. They are subject to deceptions by the intermediaries, betrayals by friends, arrests while crossing the borders and even death.

When an alluring young undergrad becomes infatuated with her nearly retired professor, she stirs up the man's humdrum home life in a most unusual way.

The film follows Dr. Manorani Saravanamuttu's relentless pursuit of justice after the tragic abduction and murder of her son, Richard de Zoysa, a journalist, writer, and human rights activist, in 1990.

The childhood story of king Pandukabhaya (474 BC - 367 BC), the 6th monarch of Sri Lanka.

A street kid is faced with the decision of whether to continue with his family's street performing profession, as his father becomes increasingly invalid and his family, helpless.

A married man (Nissanka) and woman (Miranda) find their lives disrupted after their affair is exposed by the police. Leaving their respective families, the two decide to live together. Shortly afterwards, Miranda secretly goes back to see her former husband. As paranoia mounts, Nissanka disintegrates psychologically to point where reality and fantasy are blurred.

(Sinhalese: ධර්මයුද්ධය) is a 2017 Sri Lankan Sinhala Family drama film directed by Indian director Cheyyar Ravi and produced by MTV Channel for Sirasa Films of The Capital Maharaja Organization Limited and is distributed by M Entertainments.It is a Sinhala remake of the Indian Malayalam- language film Drishyam originally written by Jeethu Joseph. Dharmayuddhaya follows the story of Harishchandra; a self-made businessman, loved and respected by all in the area. His wife and two children are his most valued treasures of his life and he spends lot of time watching films which is his hobby. Due to a stranger who enters their lives, his life along with the lives of his wife and daughters’ change unexpectedly

The complicated love story of a man and a woman, whose pasts make it harder for them to love one another.

Heena Hoyana Samanallu (Dreaming Butterflies) (Sinhalese: හීන හොයන සමනල්ලු) is a 2017 Sri Lankan Sinhala family drama film directed by Rohan Perera and produced by Sunil T Fernando for Sunil T Films. Shehan, who belongs to a higher middle class family is the only child of Madhavi (Dilhani Ekanayake) and Adithya (Saumya Liyanage). Their lives changed unexpectedly when Shehan is diagnosed with leukemia.

A young man named Thivanka returns home to Sri Lanka from England to fall in love with a village girl named Anjalika. This proves to be problematic for Thivanka, as Anjalika is the daughter of a plantation caretaker employed by Thivanka's father. Thivanka's childhood friend, Kavya is in love with Thivanka and wants to marry him. The inevitable clash of rich and poor ends in the kidnapping and subsequent death of Anjalika.

“Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.”” – George Washington Spying has always claimed the highest position in the hierarchy of human behavior. And thus it forms the crux of the film ‘Nino Live’. Based in the modern age, the film shows how an entire life can go public in this era of wires and networks. The film revolves around the journey of a child from adolescence to early manhood, all caught on celluloid.

Kamal murders his wife and, in an agitated and confused state, he sets on a journey to dispose of the body.

Young Buddhist monk Ananda, arrives at a temple in order to restore its paintings. These paintings depict Thelapaththa Jathakaya, a moral story where Lord Buddha said that a man with a big target in life must not be swayed by passion (Keles), the five senses and especially beautiful women. One day, Ananda picks up a hair pin belonging to a young woman. While attempting to return this object to its owner, his repressed feelings are awoken by the beauty and sensuality of the woman. The young monk's inner spiritual world is plunged into turmoil. Then one day the paintings are destroyed. While restoring them for the second time Ananda begins to realize that he is trapped in a web of his worldly desires and attachments.

The story revolves round three teenagers - Prageeth (Roshan), a younger, darker version of Hugh Grant, the son of a business tycoon (Corea), whose fiance is Veena (Anarkali); Sithum (Pubudu), the son of a Postman (Jayalath) is in love with Pooja, (Chathurika) while Ramith who says he comes from the middle class, and is seduced by his biology teacher who as luck would have it lives in an apartment directly opposite his block of flats, nevertheless, voices every teenagers views of life when he says all he wants to do is to take things easy.

The story of a poor student from a village in Sri Lanka who was sent to a wealthy school in the country's capital city.

A new principal comes to the underdeveloped village school that is affected by lazy teachers and drugs.

After getting through the O/L Examination with outstanding results, Anuththara with his friends eagerly look forward to experience their final years in school as seniors in the A/L class. They befriend Ahinsa and the other new girls who join their school. Ahinsa draws everyone’s attention for her smartness as well as her cheerful yet mysterious behaviour. Her irregular school attendance and the rumours circulating about her, make the others suspect that there’s a hidden story behind her cheerfulness.

The Girls is about the growing up of two schoolgirl sisters and the disappointments to which they are condemned by their impoverished backgrounds.

Samath's humble and patient demeanor is also highlighted in the movie and contrasts vehemently with the sense of entitlement we see in children educated in major cities. His innate desire to ensure that his village receives electricity and find a practical method of supplying water to his parents' paddy field are what motivate him. Will he succeed - '5 Samath'.

On a tragic night, a physicist challenges the limits of time travel to save the woman he loves, but soon discovers its inherent dangers are far greater than he expects.

A sprawling portrait of rural life in Sri Lanka; the story revolves around a boy and his friend--a blind girl who he accidentally 'heals' by giving her sight. Though the girl believes the boy healed her, in reality the boy has no such powers. The father of the boy fools the village folk into believing he's a healer, but ultimately the sham is exposed, causing the village to revolt against the boy and his family.

A home-guard serviceman assigned the task of standing watch over a barren no-man's-land begins to experience an existential crisis after years of lonely service.

A renowned filmmaker receives a mysterious call from an old college mate in the middle of the night. Asandhimitta, whom he recalls as a large and voluptuous woman, asks him to make a film based on her life. She then confesses that she was recently involved in a triple homicide of three women and is taken into custody shortly afterwards. Intrigued, the filmmaker attempts to piece together her fragmented story for a film while Asandhimitta herself awaits her fate in a local prison.

After his wife leaves him, a man with a severe case of OCD who fears that his own urine is contaminating everything around him, admits himself to a mental hospital for treatment to overcome his fear and win his wife back.

Two lovers, Yoga and Parvathi, meet on the battlefield of the Sri Lankan civil war. As the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam attack the Sri Lankan army and tighten their grip on the Tamil people, Yoga and Parvathi struggle with feelings for each other and their own commitments to the LTTE. Parvathi's family is relocated to a concentration camp and Yoga is sent on a mission to Colombo by a jealous LTTE commander. But they soon meet again in battle and Parvathi becomes pregnant with Yoga's child. In the final days of the war, the Sri Lankan army closes in on the LTTE and rescues the Tamil refugees, and the lovers desperately flee the army and the LTTE for the sake of their baby.

Sahan and Nayomi are a devoted married couple who deeply care for each other. However, after a few years of marriage, their lives begin to change as they face a complex situation.

Piyal is a handsome young teacher who is hired to teach English to Nanda, a member of a high class family. They fall in love, but can't elope because Piyal is of a lower class. Nanda's parents instead push her into a marriage with Jinadasa, who is of the same class as them. With economic downturn in Sri Lanka, both families lose their status and Jinadasa leaves to try to make a better life for himself; he never achieves his goal and dies penniless. Piyal and Nanda can now finally come together. They have changed however, and the earlier idylic nature of their relationship is not recaptured.

Amila comes from a small village in Sri Lanka. After losing his parents, he moves to Colombo. He works as a construction worker in a Chinese building site and looks after his four siblings. His sister Inoka suffers from a congenital heart defect and the only way to save her is an urgent and expensive surgery to be performed in India. While Amila is trying to find the money he needs, he just meets the wrong person at the right time, and gets caught up in the child trafficking business…

Asela, a young teacher comes to the Hatagala Elementary School situated in a remote rural village. In a short period of time, he is able to create a new educational awakening in the school with attractive, teaching methods.

In the gentrifying neighborhoods of Colombo, an adolescent girl copes with her insecurities by seeking solace in fantasy.

An intense, cat-and-mouse drama between newly appointed ASP Randeniya and a local thug (Goring Mudalali). Randeniya's life gradually falls apart as he wages war against Goring Mudalali's crime syndicate, erupting in a shocking climax.

Story of two small girls, one Sinhala and the other Tamil, amidst war.

A man washes up on a beach. He saves a foreign woman and together they flee into nature. There they discover that the beauty of the environment only distracts from the growing threat. Behind the serene greenery hides death and destruction. Where did they end up? The present and past of the country merge imperceptibly into one another. This is a battle of all times, with the landscape as a silent witness.

A woman plots her revenge after being duped by a slick, ruthless man who impregnates her and tries to bail her out of marriage.

Abasiri’s wife Suddhi abandoned him and the village a long time ago. Now, Abasiri and his young friend Mani are summoned to identify a woman who got raped and murdered in the city. Hiding his personal distress after the shocking discovery that it’s his own wife, Abasiri embarks on a strange journey with a coffin heading through captivatingly beautiful hill stations towards the village where embarrassing rumours of Suddhi’s demise are already spreading.

‘U-Turn’ follows the story of a reporter; Raveena who gets unvoluntary involved in a murder case conducted by the police as she investigates accidents on a flyover.

Wassanaye Sanda (Moon of the Autumn) (Sinhalese: වස්සානයේ සඳ ) is a 2018 Sri Lankan Sinhala romantic drama film directed by Udayakantha Warnasuriya. It follows the story of two young lovers Mihiri & Sandesh and struggles they face.

Based on a short story written by G.B. Senanayake in one of his short story collection known as "The Revenge," the film revolves around a murder committed for the purpose of gaining access to a hidden treasure.

Husma (The Breathe) (Sinhala: හුස්ම) is a 2019 Sri Lankan Sinhala drama thriller film directed by Sudesh Wasantha Peiris and produced by Nihal Wijesinghe for Nilkamal Films. It stars Pubudu Chathuranga, Dasun Pathirana and Isuru Lokuhettiarachchi in lead roles along with Chamathka Lakmini and Anjana Premaratne. Music composed by Keshan Perera.The film has influenced by 2015 Spanish film The Corpse of Anna Fritz.

A schoolboy and his friend are caught at school looking at pornography on the computer. Punished, they wrongly believe that the police are going to arrest them so they hide in an abandoned building and as the boys feel cornered, and fearing for their lives, one of them accidentally kills a prostitute with a dagger thinking she was a mugger...

Pablo arrives in British Ceylon from Burma to flee a traumatic relationship that had changed from love into passionate obsession. He notices a young pariah woman who empties his outhouse every morning. To Pablo she appears divine. In one morning, he takes her hand and leads her into his bed. Unable to believe or accept her bizarre fate, she remains passive throughout the series of events that unfold thereafter.

The film weaves together three narratives set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Three rural, working class garment factory girls - a pampered prima-Donna (Mangala), a safe runner (Swineetha) and a tormented vixen (Gothami) go through trials and tribulations of their bitter sweet youth in a liberalized industrial zone in the city. Lovelorn Gothami makes life difficult for everyone around her and creates her own tragedy by obsessively falling in love with her pretty friend Mangala's sexually frustrated lover, Vipula. The carefree existence of the three girls end in catastrophe and gothami disappears. An accidental meeting of the two girls after several years results in a confession by the ever winning Mangala. the revelation shocks Gothami. Perhaps for the first time Gothami sees life, winning and losing, suffering and salvation in a completely different perspective, which she never thought existed.

In exchange for money, a poor farmer's wife reluctantly agrees to be a surrogate mother for a rich planter and his wife. After the child is born she refuses to give it up.

While working as a mechanic to support a wife at home, Manju struggles to overcome every attempt made at discovering their assigned sex.

A young man from a very wealthy family in the upcountry, while training at the Diyathalawa Military Academy, has a love affair with Ashawari, the youngest daughter of the Ohiya Station master, and the conflict between two families is a fascinating story of victory, defeat, love and hate.